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| Posted at: 7/30/2008 12:25:53 PM |
| Headline: Interview with CSWA Director of Government Relations, Laura Groshong |
| Expire Time: 9/25/2010 |
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By Peggy Holland, LCSW
This summer, your newsletter editor interviewed Laura Groshong, LCSW, Director of Government Relations of the Clinical Social Work Association (CSWA). Laura has recently been instrumental in helping VSCSW negotiate the troubled waters of a variety of legislative issues.
We set up a conference call, and I taped our conversation, had the interview transcribed, and am happy to share this exciting conversation with you. Thank you so much, Laura, for your time and for sharing so much of yourself. P.H.
Peggy: First of all, thank you for spending the time talking with me. I think it’s going to be great for VSCSW to get to know you and have a better idea of how you function with the national association and interface with state societies.
Laura: I appreciate this opportunity. I think the Virginia Society is one of the stronger societies in the country and I think anything we can do to create understanding of the national organization in strong societies is very helpful to both organizations.
Peggy: Yes, I do too. I think our members would be interested in hearing briefly about your background with social work, a bit about yourself personally, where you went to school and grad school, things like that, jobs you have had, where you live.
Laura: Well, first of all, I wasn’t always a clinical social worker. My undergraduate degree was in music. I went to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. And I was…I still am… a flutist. Actually this is where I feel like I learned a lot about how to listen. But after I graduated, I wasn’t sure I wanted to make my career out of music so I got a job working for the Department of Child Welfare in New Haven, Connecticut. I moved to Chicago and I entered the University of Chicago, School of Social Services Administration and got my Master’s.
My husband and I then moved to Seattle, because my husband is from Oregon and he wanted to live in the Northwest. And I got a job at one of the university hospitals called Harborview Medical Center. It was also the county hospital and I was the first social worker on an inpatient psychiatric unit. It was very intense, as you can imagine. But I learned an incredible amount; not the least of which was figuring out how to get along with people in other disciplines. I was there for four years and then I had a couple of kids and started a small private practice, which I kept small until my kids went to school. Then I was basically a clinician in private practice for about 20 years. I also got my certificate in Adult Psychotherapy from the Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute. I’ve always had a psychoanalytic, mainly self-psychology, orientation.
Peggy: How did you get involved with legislative matters?
Laura: I joined the National Board of NMCOP, which is the national organization for social workers who have an analytic interest. There were some people on that board who were really looking at legislative issues; this was when managed care was just starting to come in in the early 90’s. So I was talking to them and I said I would try to do something to help protect clinical social work practice. At that time, there were still about 25 states that didn’t even have licensure so clinical social workers were really at risk in a lot of ways.
Peggy: Did they have licensure in your state?
Laura: No. Washington State was actually the fourth to last state to get licensure which was in 2001. I started educating myself about licensure laws and also the political process of how you go about passing laws.
In the mid-90’s, I was asked by the Clinical Social Work Federation if I would become the chair of the legislative committee for the states. That was a role where I would work with states on issues that affected them.
The way it worked was that states had to come to me if they had an issue with which they wanted help. And the first state to do that was Hawaii. They brought me out and I met with a lot of their legislators and agency people; their law was extremely weak. It was just a title law. And we got it fixed. That was a very positive experience.
Peggy: So did they not have licensure at all in Hawaii until after that?
Laura: They had what was called title law. That means anyone with an MSW could call themselves a certified social worker, and that’s the weakest kind of law. With that there is no protection of practice; there are no standards for becoming independent. So that was the beginning, and then I started going around the states and helping them with mostly licensure issues. At this point I’ve consulted with about 35 states in one form or another. I’ve either gone there or worked with people in the state; I do an analysis of licensure laws, a 16-point analysis. And I’ve done one for Virginia.
Peggy: Yes. And tell me about your involvement with this and the Virginia Society for Clinical Social Work.
Laura: Well, I knew Mark O’Shea, he had been President of VSCSW at one point, and that meant he came to the Federation board meetings when I was Government Relations Co-Chair. He and I had met there, and we had a common interest because Mark is a musician also. We spent a lot of time talking about music and a little bit about clinical social work. And when this bill was presented in 2006, House Bill 1146, he called me and said, “You know, I think this is a real problem for us. Can you help us out?” So he and I worked very closely on developing a plan, along with Jane Hundley who was then President of VSCSW; we developed a strategy to fight this bill because it would have seriously weakened your law which had problems already. This would have allowed a creation of a licensure level for anyone with any kind of social work degree would have been quite a bad idea for clinical social work. I think we were quite successful in getting HB 1146 tabled with the help of Chris Spanos, your excellent lobbyist in Virginia. It would have passed without our intervention, I’m pretty sure of that. You are very lucky to have Mark O’Shea as Legislative Vice President; he has such good political instincts. He is very, very good in his role and a great guy.
Peggy: I agree! Can you speak to any other state issues here in Virginia that you have assisted with or become aware of as you’ve worked with the board?
Laura: Well, the rules are being revised; the rule on sexual misconduct? That’s a pretty interesting one!
Peggy: Yes. Would you say a little bit about your understanding of the background of this issue?
Laura: Well, it’s not an issue that is strictly going on in Virginia. I’ve talked to many states about their sexual misconduct rules. And as we know, our Codes of Ethics say it’s never appropriate to have a sexual relationship with a former patient. There are very few states that have that as a standard in their sexual misconduct rules. Most states have gone with the psychology standards on this issue, which say, it is okay to have a sexual relationship after two years after termination of a clinical relationship. The caveat is that you have to be sure you’re not exploiting the patient, and that’s something that’s a contradiction in terms for us as social workers.
Peggy: So what you’re saying is that most states that have any sexual misconduct rules are following what the psychologists have provided as a lead?
Laura: Correct. That’s exactly right. And it’s very interesting because now I’ve just heard that the psychologists are reviewing their sexual misconduct standards and may be making them stronger.
Peggy: Yes. My understanding is that they’re the ones—at least in the state of Virginia—who have pressed for the rule to change from two years to five years, which is what brought this issue to the forefront on our Board of Social Work.
Laura: Yes. The psychologists’ national standards have been two years, though, and that’s where I think they’re changing…they’re reviewing their standards. So that would be a huge change if they make it. I don’t think they’re talking about going to “never” but they may get to the 5-year standard which the Virginia Board of Social Work just adopted.
Peggy: Right. This is an exciting and ongoing issue for us at this time. Is there anything else that you would like to speak to, Laura, about Virginia, your experience with our state, or anything else you would like to say?
Laura: Well, I regard my work for Virginia as pretty successful and I feel good about that. And I think you all have a challenge because Virginia is such a big state. Trying to keep your chapters linked is a challenge. It’s very unusual for a state to be able to do that without having an executive director.
Peggy: Well, we’ve always had strong leadership in the president’s role and other board positions, as well as a wonderful Administrative Assistant, Cathy Reiner. We have had those who have been willing to take the reins and have been active in the various chapters and to maintain contact throughout the whole state.
Laura: Yes. That has made you a strong society which has confused clinical social workers about the need for national representation. As you know, there was a change nationally from the Clinical Social Work Federation to the Clinical Social Work Association in 2006. It has been a very difficult process. When we were a Federation and every Society paid dues to the Federation, people didn’t have to think about supporting a national organization. They just supported their state society and their dues also went to help the Federation. But the Federation was not a workable system for a national organization. It was based on agreement between 35 states with the president of each state society working together with great turnover, and therefore difficulty reaching consensus.
Peggy: Right. I understand that this was partially why the Federation came to an end and the Association began.
Laura: Yes. Eventually the decision was made to turn the organization into an Association, which was a membership organization with links to state societies. I want to thank the Virginia Society for becoming an affiliated society. However, the Association is supported mainly by individual members – this has been a challenge for people to understand. People are paying dues to their state society, and then they’re being asked to pay dues to a national organization as well.
So this is our challenge at the moment – educating, especially society members, but all clinical social workers, about the fact that if we don’t have national representation, we cannot protect clinical social work. There are three bills right now that are very important, such as mental health parity, which will directly affect our practices. Another is the Medicare reimbursement cuts, which is something we have been fighting and it looks like we’re going to win that battle. And, finally, the funding for children’s mental healthcare is something that we’ve been working on.
I think it’s really important to have a national presence. And lately we’ve really started working with other social work organizations, including NASW and Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB). I think this is going to be extremely beneficial to clinical social work. I know there has been a lot of tension between the groups and we are taking the position that we want to find out what we can agree on, what we can work on together.
Peggy: This is the place at which I might call attention to another article in this edition of the newsletter – a letter from Kevin Host, CSWA President, which will help our readers understand a little bit more about the interface of our society with NASW, particularly.
Laura: Exactly. Another thing I’ve been working on is a review of all the state clinical social work licensure laws. And it’s going to be a book.
Peggy: Oh. How is that going for you?
Laura: I’m about halfway there.
Peggy: Well, we will eagerly wait for that because I know that people, whether they’re practicing privately, in a hospital or a school setting, all of us who have a license that allows us to practice and to do our profession, are concerned and interested to know how that might be effected in the future.
Laura: Well, I hope it will be helpful. I think some of us have gotten a little complacent; if we have a license we figure we can do what we need to do. We don’t have to worry about it. We’ve got a license and we don’t have to track all that happens to it. And this is something I’ve seen in a lot of states - that it’s hard to get the concept that a license is a work in progress. There are always changes to the law or the rules. And it’s important to track that and be aware of what and how that could affect you.
VSCSW is extremely fortunate to have Chris and Mark tracking this for you. It is my pleasure to be able to work with them and your excellent Society Board, headed by Susan Witt. I hope our collaboration will continue for many years to come.
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